“Looks like their loot,” I said. There were crates and crates of stuff scattered throughout the hold we found ourselves in; some were open and held Hive weapons and devices. “They’re stripping the Dreadnought.”

I saw Telrik pick up a large boomer, clearly meant for a massive Knight. “Wow. What have they gotten into?”

“There’s no way they got some of this stuff without cracking open a gate. They’ve entered into the Ascendant Realm.” Magnus’s tone was grave.

“Maybe that’s why they started recruiting the Cabal: pick up the survivors from the crashed ship, use the info they have to punch through,” suggested Farstride.

“Plausible,” Magnus agreed.

Drake was hovering near the far-side of the hold at a sealed door that blocked our passage. I wandered over to observe him.

“There are runes holding this door shut,” he said. He ran his hand over the door, and the faerie-light of Hive runes glowed across the barrier.

“Blood of the Traveler,” I murmured. “How did they…?”

The Warlock shook his head. “I am not sure. But we need to move on and find their leadership.” He held out his hand and his Ghost floated to the door. “It’s a wonder that they managed to make use of the Hive tech. It begs a lot of questions.”

I grunted and watched his Ghost go to work. The door glowed with increasing intensity as the Ghost scanned and translated, and then a pulse washed over everything. A deep rumble shook the ship, and the door peeled open.

“Hit the deck!” I shouted. A rocket whipped through the aperture and smashed open a crate of Hive weaponry. Cleavers and swords spilled onto the deck and we all leapt to different cover points.

“Nassa sook ka!” roared the Fallen as it came barreling out of the hallway. It was wielding a hefty Scorch cannon and protected by blocky armor that seemed at odds with its lupine form.

“What did he say?” asked Heisenberg-3. We crouched behind a short stack of crates.

“‘All shall burn,’ I think,” I replied.

“Oh. I can help with that.” The Titan pivoted out of cover and hurled a burning hammer at the Fallen. The fire washed over it in a cloud. The Fallen took aim, looking unperturbed.

“Whoops.” A Scorch missile buried itself into Heisenberg’s chest and he went sailing past my cover spot. The missile detonated while he was in midair and he disappeared in a shower of sparks and plasma.

“Guardian down,” Ebony reported belatedly.

The noise of gunfire filled the hold, but the Fallen seemed no more bothered than if the bullets had been a cloud of gnats. Servitors now flew out of the passage behind it, some glowing green with a faerie-light.

I ducked and juked my way across the hold to Drake’s side. “Look at the Servitors,” I said.

He popped his head out of cover, took a couple of shots, and ducked down again. “Runes etched on their chassis,” he confirmed.

“Hive?” I asked.

“Looks like.”

I stood up and took a potshot at one of the Servitors. The round gouged a small piece out of its frame. It hurried behind cover.

“They don’t have weapons,” I said. “They just retreat.”

“Servitors are generating a field on the Vandal,” Magnus reported. He was busy pouring bullets into the chassis of a Servitor that had had the bad luck to be cornered by him and Telrik.

“Take out the Servitors, stand by to hit the Vandal. And someone pickup Heisenberg,” Farstride added.

“I’ve got the Titan,” said Drake. He motioned to Heisenberg’s Ghost and went to find a safe space to revive the fallen Guardian. I loaded my sniper rifle and began focusing on the Servitors.

“Last Servitor down! Hit the Vandal!” We all opened fire on the Fallen.

The bullets bounced and ricocheted off the Fallen’s armor harmlessly. “KAAAAAAA!!!” It roared furiously, raised the Scorch cannon and pulled the trigger in rapid succession – a dozen rockets flew from the weapon and scattered across the hold, leaving no safe space I could see.

“Down down down!” someone screamed, I wasn’t sure who, as we were all running in different directions trying to find some kind of cover. Then all the rounds went off.

Darkness. The field was squishy underfoot. The Tower was closer now, and I could make out the turrets and balconies. Something moved in my peripheral, something clutching and broken and wrong, the shape was wrong, WRON-

“Morc, you good?” I started back into reality, awash in Void Light from the revival. Farstride was kneeling over the body of Magnus, and with a flash of Light the black-robed Warlock returned to the land of the living.

“What happened?” I demanded. “How did you survive that?”

Farstride pointed at the wreckage of one of the Servitors. “These things still generate some kind of protective field even when destroyed, just in a more limited space. But I have no idea how to crack that armor. And he’s got fresh Servitors.”

“Boomers!” Telrik said from the far side of the hold. He was gathered with Heisenberg-3 and Drake. “Use the boomers in the crates to hit him when the field comes down, but it’s got to be quick. If he pulls that cannon stunt again…”

“That was Flint’s treasure that we had come so far to seek, and that had cost already the lives of seventeen men from the Hispaniola. How many it had cost in the amassing, what blood and sorrow, what good ships scuttled on the deep, what brave men walking the plank blindfold, what shot of cannon, what shame and lies and cruelty, perhaps no man alive could tell.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

“…requesting aid from any Guardians within these coordinates! Please respond!”

Farstride raised a fist and our fire-team came to a halt. “This is Farstride of the Valherjar.”

“Traveler be praised!” The Guardian’s voice was tight with strain. “This is Irma-6 of FWC unit Northern Paladins. My fire-team is pinned by a mass of Taken and Hive forces. 1 of my Guardians is down and we can’t revive him. Both of us are running out of Light!” There was a brief pause. “We found a terminal that was locking down a Hive cache. We successfully unlocked the terminal but it summoned Taken.” Another pause. “Look, Far Hide, or whatever your name is, we’ll split the takeaway from this with you, even shares all around if you help me get my team out of here.”

Another ping of coordinates. “Double time,” said Farstride and we picked up our pace.

“The Northern Paladins are a tough unit,” said Drake. “Treasure hunting in enemy controlled territory is what they do. If they are in a tight spot this will be a hard fight.”

“House, Morc: you 2 are faster, so go on ahead and reinforce them, we’ll catch up.”

We nodded and started to run ahead. I turned on a heel and pointed at Emma as I ran. “Stay out of trouble and do what Farstride says.”

Emma flipped me off and I took it as a sign she was doing OK in spite of her injuries. I raced to catch up with House.

House stood on the Ogre’s skull and pulled his knife free from its head. He whipped it through the air to sling the ichor off the blade, which had covered most of his steel-colored armor in a thick paste. I shook my hand cannon to make sure none of the ectoplasm from the Taken were in it. The scattering of Hive bodies belied the sheer numbers that we had defeated, as the Taken left little behind when they were destroyed.

Drake knelt over a white Ghost that rested on the chest of another Warlock wrapped in the blue and red robes of a Future War Cult soldier. After a few moments he stood and shook his head. “I am sorry, but his Light is gone. I cannot do anymore.”

Irma-6 knelt next to her fallen comrade. She was dressed in the same colors as the dead Warlock, a tiny Titan that was barely a meter and a half tall. Irma picked up the dead Ghost and cradled it in her hands. The last member of her fire team, a giant of a Guardian that I took to be an Awoken judging by his patterns of speech – there was no way to be certain beneath the Iron Banner helm he wore – rested a hand on her shoulder. Irma-6 shrugged his hand off, and I heard a soft sound I took to be a sign of grief.

“Thank you for trying,” said the second Titan. He thrust out a gauntlet towards Farstride. “I am Leonardo of the Northern Paladins.”

“Farstride of the Valherjar.” Farstride shook his hand. “Sorry we did not get here sooner.”

“It is no fault of yours,” said the Titan. “We split with the other half of our team to investigate this cavern. We found a rune of some sort and matched its energy signature to a terminal here.” He turned and pointed at a large black cylinder that rested on a thick column almost 2 meters off the ground, covered in glowing Hive script. Next to the terminal was a large chest that seemed to have grown straight out of the floor. “A Wizard was here, singing some dirge. We came to the conclusion that this was her laboratory, or ritual circle, and that chest contained her foci. So we decided that we would take it.”

“And then the Taken,” concluded Emma. She was leaning on her rifle like a crutch, and she sounded strained. She had acquitted herself well in the fight, providing covering fire for the rest of us.

Leonardo nodded. “Perhaps she led them, or was summoning them. Either way we were quickly overrun, and they cut off our exit.”

Irma-6 stood and took her place next to Leonardo. “I am taking Balthazar’s Ghost back to the transmat zone.”

“I will deal with the body,” said Leonardo.

“Very well. Do with the loot as you will.” She nodded curtly to our group and turned away, still cradling the dead Ghost in her hands.

Leonardo sighed. “Well, there are 5 of you, and 1 of me. The terms were an even split, and we Paladins honor our agreements.” He motioned to the chest. “Take your pick. I will take what remains.”

House walked over to the chest and lifted the lid. He reached in and rummaged about for moment. I heard things clanking or rattling as he moved them. Then he drew out something small and square, and after turning it over in his hands a few times, nodded. “This will do.”

Drake went next. He rifled through the contents for a few minutes and then drew out what appeared to be a heavy neck chain. He pocketed it and withdrew.

I looked at Emma. She shook her head weakly. I went over and looked into the chest. It was deep – surprisingly so – and had a strange collection of items inside. A stack of what looked like ingots of metal made of material so black they sucked in Light took up nearly half the chest. The other half had neatly arranged items organized in a way that I couldn’t quite grasp, but it was clearly with purpose. There was the skull of a Thrall encrusted with stones and what might have been jewels, resting in a pair of skeletal hands like an offering. Several pieces of jewellery were scattered with different items in the chest. A bolt of cloth, thick as a blanket and made of some fur I could not identify was dyed a color that was well outside the perception range of most mammals, and I had the impression even my own eyes couldn’t see every shade.

There were a variety of different blades, each with a different shape of hilt and edge, some clearly not made for human hands, some that might have been. I lifted a couple of these, and noticed near the bottom of the stack a particularly large weapon. I gently cleared the others from the stack and hefted it. The material was a metal I could not identify and much, much heavier than any sword had a right to be. The blade was double-edged and had a wicked point meant for thrusting, and overall nearly 2 meters long. The hilt was too thick for human hands to be comfortable, and the cross-guard was small relative to the size of the blade. I realized it wasn’t a sword at all, but a monstrous knife made for some behemoth as a backup weapon. Whatever creature had wielded this would have been a giant in their own right. I would have to reforge the hilt to make it feasible for 2 hands, but it would do. I rested the blade on my shoulder and stepped away after surreptitiously pocketing one of the shinier jewels.

Farstride took several of the ingots and the thick pelt. “This will make some fine armor if we can get someone to forge it,” he said. Freyja transmatted his loot for easy transport.

Leonardo took a few things I did not see, then he closed the lid. “Some of those things are best left here,” he said, and Drake nodded in agreement. “I can lead you back to the transmat zone.”

“We would appreciate that,” Farstride admitted.

“This way,” said the Titan, and we followed him out. As he passed Balthazar’s body he extended a hand and Arc energy leaped from his fingers, lighting the body. It disappeared into ash.

“Light be with him,” said Drake. We all murmured agreement. Then I offered Emma a shoulder to lean on and we trudged out in silence.

With our backs to the wall, the Darkness will fall
We never quite thought we could lose it all
Ready, aim, fire, ready, aim, fire
An empire’s fall in just one day
You close your eyes and the glory fades
Ready, aim, fire, ready, aim, fire away (fire!)
Ready, aim, fire, ready, aim, fire away

Ready Aim Fire, Imagine Dragons

“Do Guardians not bring anything besides guns?” demanded Emma. Even under her helmet I could feel her glaring daggers at me as she leaned on me for support.

“Well, usually that’s enough,” I said, trying not to sound //sheepish. “Although now we are out of ammo.”

“Traveler save us all,” she muttered. “Stop for a second.” I obliged and she sat on the ground, one leg stretched out in front of her: in spite of the sealed suit, the leg was clearly resting at a strange angle just below her knee. Emma then pulled the pack on her back around and opened it up. She reached in and took out a white cylinder about half a meter long. “Ghost, help me.”

Charlemagne and Ebony looked at one another for a moment, then Charlemagne floated down to her eye level. She held the cylinder up to the little blue Ghost.

“What is…” He scanned the object. “Oh! I see.” There was a flash of a transmat and Emma groaned in pain: the outside of her deformed leg became covered in a hard casing, and there was a sound of mechanical whirring. The leg straightened out and the casing blew out a small cloud of gases as it tightened down. Then Emma sighed with relief and her head lolled back briefly.

“Pain killers should be kicking in now,” said Charlemagne. “That’s a very clever device! How long does healing take?”

“If I have regular caloric intake, the injections take about 2 weeks to repair the bone. Longer if I have less to eat, since it runs on my body’s energy levels.” Emma stood to her feet, using her rifle as a crutch to lever herself up, then put weight on the broken leg. After a couple of test steps she nodded. “There. Now I can function.” She bent down and reached into the bag once more, pulling out a spool of thin wire and a grappling hook and small metal anchors. “Standard climbing apparatus for Dead Orbit crews in case of crashing in inhospitable terrain.”

“It would behoove us to have something similar in the future,” Drake admitted.

“You think?” said Emma.

“Hey, we did just save your life. A little gratitude wouldn’t hurt,” I said.

“Actually, by my count, I saved yours. For the second time. And with this, I am saving it again.” Emma positioned herself where we had landed from our jump down into the cell. “OK, Ebony, help me aim.” My Ghost obliged, giving her pointers for the angle and approximate distance – it was impossible to tell from down below – and she fired the grapple into the air over our heads. The wire followed, then went slack when the hook landed. She tapped a button on the side of the gun, and then tugged on the wire: it went taught.

“Good to go,” she said. “I’ll go first, put some extra anchors up there just in case. The firing device is also a reel, so I will send it down in a moment.” Then flipped a switch on it and began to ascend.

“Handy!” said Charlemagne. Drake nodded his agreement, then looked at me. “Are you all right?”

I shrugged to communicate //nonchalance, even if it was false. “I will be fine.”

Drake nodded again. “Darkness is only the absence of Light, Morc-35. In times like these, it is best to remember that.”

“Thanks…? I think,” I said, //unsure what else I should say.

“I-” Drake was interrupted by the return of the grappling reel. I motioned for him to take it, and he ascended to the faint light overhead, leaving me alone with Ebony and my thoughts.

“She was Taken. We might not have to deal with her again,” said Ebony.

“I don’t think it is that simple,” I replied. Ebony did not comment. Eventually the reel returned. I grabbed it, flipped the switch, and we rushed upward. The edge of the platform appeared and I reached for it.

A gauntlet seized my wrist and hauled me into the air before I could react. I fumbled for my knife to cut the attacker.

“Blimey, House! Look what I copped!” said Farstride in a terrible cockney accent as he dragged me over the edge. “It’s a bloomin’ Exo!”

“We had a rough landing. Thankfully we were close enough together that Farstride’s Ghost helped revive me,” House explained as he handed me an ammo pack. We had gathered on the bridge outside the cell. “Our Ghosts detected a spike of Light from the cell, so we guessed it must be a Guardian.”

“That would be Drake flash-bombing the 100 or so Thrall down there,” I said, loading my revolver.

“Well, there is good news and bad news. Which do you want first?” asked Farstride.

“Good news would be well received,” said Drake.

“The good news is that our assault accomplished its objective: the transmat zone is secure, Guardians are flooding the Dreadnought as we speak, and our distraction was enough for a Guardian to punch through to the closed off parts of the ship. We believe they might already be on their way to face the King.”

“What’s the bad news?” I asked.

“We have lost at least 4 dozen Guardians thus far since we landed – several to a section of the ship I haven’t seen yet, but analysis received indicates its a focal point for powerful Hive entities: they’re calling it the Court of Oryx. There is no word if the Guardian on their way to face the Taken King has survived. Also, we are lost.”

“Wonderful,” I said, making sure to inject the inflection with as much //sarcasm as I could muster.

“It’s not all bad Morc,” said House. “More Guardians are landing every hour. Chances are we will meet up with a group of scouts in time.”

“Nothing for it then,” said Emma. She hefted her rifle over her shoulder. “Let’s get out of here, hmm?” Without waiting for us to answer she turned on a heel and began walking toward the end of the bridge.

As you read, you feel a small lump in the binding of the journal. Turning it over, you notice a ragged seam on the edge of the lump. You pick at it, and a small data chip falls out. Plugging it into a compatible device, the following audio transcript plays…

Therapist: You are very quiet this session. I don’t think I have seen you like this since you first started coming here.

Silence for 63 seconds. Background noise is audible, what might be traffic.

T: What happened on the Dreadnought? When you called you said you had seen her again. I thought you meant a fellow Guardian. What did you mean?

Morc-35: The Wizard.

T: The Wizard you called – shuffling of papers – Skadi?

M35: Not my name for her. You can thank my comrades for that.

T: Naming things gives us power over them: it helps us define them, set borders on their existence. A nameless thing, or something that has its name hidden, takes on a greater aspect in our minds than it should. This is part of the reason cultures throughout Earth’s history have placed great value on people’s names.

M35: I am an Exo. I can calculate the abilities of a Wizard. I know the average distance they stay off the ground, the amount of damage a bolt of Arc energy from their claws can do, the average number of Thrall and Acolyte spawn they have at their disposal-

T: And none of that changes the fact that you were afraid of her. Who can blame you after the incident at the Seeder? It is the whole reason you sought therapy in the first place – a brave decision, and unusually self-aware for an Exo. Many of your people do not acknowledge the human aspect of their intelligence.

“Ammo!” I threw down yet another grenade and the bolts of Arc light chained through the crowd of Thrall. The bodies tumbled into the ring of corpses piled all around us, and bought me a few precious seconds to reload once more.

“That’s it! We’re out!” said Ebony as I chained the clip into the machine gun.

“What?” I cried, raising the weapon to mow down another wave of Thrall.

“That was the last pack! I have nothing left to transmat!”

I shoved the bore of the machine gun into a Thrall’s gut and pushed it back before firing a round into it. “You have to be kidding! What about Drake’s?

“Charlemagne?” I heard Ebony ask as over the sound of my weapon.

“We have a few special packs left.”

“Give!”

I kicked a Thrall that got too close in the knee and clubbed it with the barrel of my weapon. It collapsed as another sprang over it, and I speared that with its own weight on the barrel, then tossed both aside. Ebony dropped my shotgun into my hands and I spun in a rapidly shrinking circle. All the while Drake chanted on, and I had to dance around him. Then the gun ran dry. I brained another Hive beast with the stock, then dropped that as well, freeing my sax knife with my left hand and pulling my sword over my shoulder with my right. I channeled Arc light through both, and lightning grounded off the weapons with a crack of thunder.

Slice. Cut. Kick. Another grenade. I could feel my Light pouring out through the blades like conduits, but nothing refreshed it. The cold and //sluggishness began to creep in again in spite of Drake’s chant.

Then the Hive stopped. The Thrall crouched on the corpses of their comrades, dozens…maybe hundreds…like wingless vultures, their eyes glowing in the dim light. They clicked and chattered, but none entered Drake’s circle.

“C’mon!” I shouted at them, flourishing my blades. “Come get some!” In the relative silence I could hear the susurrus again, still assaulting us. Then a laugh, and the Wizard floated to the edge of the circle.

The Wizard looked much like I remembered her, if more ragged and bloodied. A chunk of her crest was missing over the right side of her brow, as if something large had attempted to bite her. “Hunter,” she purred, if she spoke at all, although nothing of her maw moved with the word; I heard it all the same.

“Wizard,” I taunted, and gestured her forward with my blades. “C’mon. I am here.”

“And how fortunate for me,” she replied. She began to circle Drake’s casting area, still sparking where her sorcery met his Light. “I had thought that it would take longer to bring you here. When your precious humans fell to the Dreadnought it was too good to be true. I brought them here, and your Warlock there,” she gestured at Drake with a claw, “followed their signal. How lucky that you picked them up so quickly.”

“Liar. Drake said nothing about them.”

“Oh, doubtless he thought them dead when he saw I killed the male. That 1 was…troublesome.” She laughed, and this was an audible sound. “And your little female, she is yet here.”

“Show her to me,” I demanded.

The Wizard hissed. “You are in no position to order me, child of Light.”

I flipped the knife in my hand and hefted it as if to hurl the weapon at her. “I am going to kill you today, Wizard. The only thing you can change is how quickly.”

She shrieked and brought her claws together, as if applauding, still floating in a circle around us. “Such worship! Our King’s tribute flows ever upward, and you, in His place of power, you obey His laws! For this I will be rewarded!”

“Shut up!” I shouted at her.

“Your friends die in numbers not seen since our princely god laid waste to your Moon! I can hear their screams. Your Tower hurls more and more at the Dreadnought and still they die, feeding our King!”

I called the last of my Light, and the glow of the blades cast an aura of Arc heat all around. I braced myself for the leap.

The rifle crack was so loud I thought the stone beneath my feet had broken. The Wizard crumpled to the ground with an angry shriek, sparks and fluid leaping from the wound. The whispered chant ceased. Drake’s own prayer rose into a shout, and he whipped his hands apart and thrust them, palms out, in opposite directions. The globe of Light expanded outward in a wash of power, vaporizing the crouching Thrall into atoms.

The Wizard screamed and crabbed away on the ground, burning all over with violet Light. Another rifle shot skipped off the stone near her head and she scuttled away from it.

“Hold still, you bitch,” snarled Emma, limping into the glow with an ancient sniper rifle pointed at the Hive monster. She cycled another round into the chamber.

“Mine!” I shouted, and stalked over to the wounded Wizard. I raised the sword overhead.

“We are not finished Hunter!” The words were screamed into my mind as the Wizard curled on the ground, her eyes glowing with hate as she glared at me, jerking like a wounded spider.

“Just DIE!” I shouted, and brought the sword down.

The Blight opened up with a howl and the Wizard was sucked away into the Darkness. My sword struck the now empty space and shattered into a half-dozen pieces. The glow faded, and I sank to my knees, staring at the smear where the Hive monster had been Taken from me.

But a shot in the dark
One step away from you
Just a shot in the dark
Nothing that you can do
Just a shot in the dark
Always creeping up on you

A Shot in the Dark by Ozzy Osbourne

“You are not going down alone.”

I tried to dislodge Drake’s hold on my cloak. “Bloody hell Drake! Someone has to stay up here in case a Guardian gets close enough for a signal!”

“We can worry about that later. I am going with you.” Drake’s tone was firm.

“Drake-”

“I have seniority. I am going with you.” The Awoken crossed his arms.

“You’ll stick out like a candle in those red and gold robes,” I said, trying for something biting.

He snorted at me, but his helmet blocked his expression.

“Fine,” I said. “Let’s go.”

“It’s so Dark down here,” said Charlemagne softly. The blue Ghost shone a beam of light into the gloom like a knife cutting black cloth.

“Too Dark. Our signal input is practically gone.” Ebony was invisible except for his little diamond eye in the center of his orb.

“Enemies?” asked Drake.

“Lots of movement,” said Ebony. My HUD lit up red on the edges, but nothing was close. Not yet.

“Any sign of Emma?” I asked.

“No.” Charlemagne looked back up to the weak light we had left behind. “Are we sure she’s down here? What if it was a trick?”

“We would have to have come anyway,” I said, recalling Arianna’s words to me almost a year ago: “If you find something like a family, protect them for all you are worth. Because when you die for the last time, they may be the only people who notice.”

We strode through the darkness, looking for signs of the enemy. The clicking and growling of Thrall echoed all around. The ground squished underfoot in some places, and I imagined what we might be walking through.

A Thrall shrieked, and a glowing orb charged out of the black, bobbing from side to side as it ran.

“Cursed!” I shot the incoming orb and it staggered. I shot it again and it exploded, washing pale green light throughout the cell. The flash illuminated dozens of Thrall racing towards us, some caught in the explosion, and my HUD went almost solid red all around.

“Incoming.” Drake’s voice was cool and collected, and he pivoted on his heel to guard our flank, his gun spitting fire as he moved. “More Cursed.” I had no time to respond: I was too busy shooting or otherwise putting down attacking Thrall. Ebony and Charlemagne floated overhead, shining light into the dark to expose as many Thrall as possible.

Cursed Thrall screamed and exploded. Other Thrall raced in, swinging claws and rending the air with teeth as they closed. It went on for several minutes, and we burnt through a considerable amount of ammo to keep the hordes at bay. Eventually the cell grew quiet, but there were still red indicators at the edges of my HUD.

“Think they’ve given up?” I asked.

“Doubtful,” said Drake. “It is more likely they are revising their tactics.”

“We should move while we still have the chance then,” I suggested.

“No,” said Drake. “They left off the assault because we have a strong position. Let us wait until they try again.”

I was about to argue with him. Then a roar filled the cell, and a 3-eyed figure charged out of the gloom, the edge of its weapon cutting a false light through the Dark. I darted aside from its attack and pivoted. Drake jumped straight into the air and hung there, shooting down at the Knight. It thundered its rage and threw up a shield to block his shots.

“Hey!” My shout caught its attention, and the Knight turned its head to look down the bore of my shotgun. I pulled the trigger and shattered the monster.

More shrieks from the Thrall, and they swarmed in again.

“They have to run out sometime,” I insisted. I buried my knife to the hilt in a Thrall’s skull and it dropped like a stone to the ground.

“Clearly this cell is much larger than we anticipated,” said Drake. His rifle barked almost incessantly.

“We’ve been at this for hours,” I said. “They attack, wait, attack, wait.” I shot another Cursed, and its demise extinguished a group of Hive.

“Wearing us down for something,” said Drake. His rifle fell silent, and the red marks on my motion tracker cleared up.

“For what?” I demanded. Drake did not reply. “Any sign of Emma?”

“None,” said Ebony.

“The deeper we go into the cell, the more our Light is cut off. And our chances of escape,” added Charlemagne.

//Anger coursed through my circuits. “Wizard!” I shouted into the dark. “Wizard! I am here! Come face me, or are you too afraid without your spawn?”

Shrieking laughter echoed through the cell and died away into unseen hollows and cracks.

“Blood of the Traveler!” I was //enraged now. “Coward! You can kidnap a girl but won’t face a Guardian? Are you afraid my friends will come for you again? Well, we’re locked in here, Wizard! Do your worst!”

“Umm, maybe we shouldn’t taunt the thing that has us locked in a cage with it?” suggested Ebony.

“What’s that noise?” Charlemagne had begun to swivel side to side, his lance of light cutting the darkness.

A susurrus flowed around us just on the edge of hearing. It crept through the dark to wind its way around our ankles and into the microscopic cracks in our armor. The whispering was undefined – no words I could understand – but it was insistent, demanding, and constant, pausing for neither breath or movement. A cold //dread followed it, freezing the fluid in my joints and filling me with //hesitation.

Drake suddenly knelt to the floor and cupped his hands together as if cradling a child’s ball between his palms. “Cover me,” he said.

“What? What are you doing?” I demanded.

“She’s draining our Light,” he said. “I can hold her back, but they will attack us now. It’s up to you Morc-35. They are coming.” Then he began to murmur a dirge, or perhaps a prayer, and the space between his palms glowed with Void Light. Warmth seeped back into our immediate space, and violet sparks floated and died like miniature storms all around us in a nearly perfect globe.

And then the Thrall screamed again, and the ground shook beneath their rushing claws.

Hello Darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains within the sound of silence

~The Sound of Silence, by Simon and Garfunkel

“There,” said Ebony. “Just East of us.”

“Is there an East in this thing?” I asked, looking down into the darkness of the Dreadnought below my feet.

“Relative to the ship’s bow.”

“Ah.” Below a flash of violet light, flickering off the edge of the…I suppose it was the deck…that bordered the empty space the great stone obelisks swung in.

“Definitely someone down there.”

“Drake,” confirmed my Ghost.

I judged the drop. “If I miss the jump…we will fall a very long way.”

“Pretty sure I can catch you with a transmat if you don’t hit anything on the way down.”

“Pretty sure?” I asked.

“As sure as I can be in this place. And if I don’t have to revive you as well, so don’t collide with anything before we get down.”

I still felt //hesitant. “I don’t like this,” I admitted.

“You’ll need a running start, and your angle of descent needs to begin about 2.5 meters beyond the edge of the obelisk. If you can make that then you will make the jump.”

I backed away from the edge, cradling my shotgun. “On 3,” I said. “1, 2…” Then I sprinted forward.

“That wasn’t 3!” said Ebony.

“Oops. 3!” Then we were soaring through the air, down, down…

Shapes on the deck formed and took on details as we rapidly descended. I saw a cluster of Hive, mostly Acolytes mixed with some hesitant Thrall, shooting at a crouched Guardian. Even from this distance I could feel the gravity of his Light, like a neutron star couched in its very own cradle of darkness and shining with a holy radiance. He came to his feet and snapped off several shots at the Acolytes before ducking for cover again.

The Thrall seemed to take that as a cue and they rushed forward just beneath my feet. I blinked to arrest my fall, then dropped the last couple of meters into the cluster of them. Shotgun shells made short work of the startled Thrall.

“Morc!” The Awoken vaulted over the ridge of chitin he had taken cover behind and sprinted to join me.

“Sir Drake, I-” My quip was interrupted when Drake smashed into me, taking us both to the deck. A line of Solar energy burned a pin-sized hole into the chitin near my head. I tracked the shot and saw the shadowy simulacra of Fallen – no, Taken – snipers perched on the edge of a nearby obelisk that was almost level with the deck.

“Up!” Drake almost bodily hauled me to my feet and charged the Acolytes. I followed.

The Acolytes stood their ground, firing at us as we attacked. Heat singed my armor. Drake leaped upward and called the Void to his hands. The Light folded into itself, over and over over until it dragged in even the Darkness…and then launched from the Warlock’s will. The bomb smashed the Acolytes and disintegrated them, leaving little more than a smoking crater. The residual Light folded around the Warlock in a shield that reflected the renewed attacks from the Taken snipers.

“This way!” Drake pointed at the wall the deck jutted out from on our left, and I saw a wound in its side: a tunnel or passage of some kind. More shots from the snipers. I took some potshots at them with my hand cannon, but opaque bubbles enveloped my targets.

The air howled with fury and something huge stepped out of the wound of blight. A Taken Centurion, lumbering and huge, blocked the passage. Void energy pulsed from his hands.

“Back! Before they put us in a vice!” Drake turned. I was about to argue with him that we should just fight our way through until I saw the shadowy figures of more Taken swarming around the Centurion and rushing us – or in some cases, just blinking forward. I listened to the seasoned Warlock and followed him.

More blight pulsed around us, making the air thick with it. Another howl, and a Taken Knight appeared, fire spitting from his hands. 2 Psions become 4, then 8, then 16…

“The bridge!” Drake pointed at a long bridge that spanned the chasm to an obelisk.

“We don’t know what’s over there!” I shouted at him.

“Better than being surrounded out here!”

“I don’t know if that’s true!” But it seemed we had little choice: the Taken were chasing us that way anyway.

We ran over the bridge, and I turned to fire back at the pursuing Taken every few meters. The only ones too intent on us were the shadowy Thrall, blinking sideways and forward every few moments. I stabbed a couple that got too close and dissipated them.

“There’s a door. There’s always a door!” I saw Charlemagne, Drake’s blue Ghost, hovering over the runes on the huge stone door. “These aren’t very complex,” said the Ghost. “If anything this is absurdly easy…”

“Then maybe let us in?” I demanded. I shot another Taken: the Psions were rushing us now, and I could see the Knight behind them, rapidly closing.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, I mean, if I am reading these right it’s supposed to keep something in…”

“Just open it Ghost.” Drake shot a Psion. “We need out of this situation now.”

The Ghost complied and the door creaked open with a scraping of stone and dust. We ducked inside, into a well-lit circular room with 3 exits. We turned to face our pursuers.

The Taken stopped just outside of the door, moving only to avoid our fire. The Knight strode right up to the threshold and waved a hand. The doors creaked and began to close.

“No no no!” Ebony squeaked in terror. I rushed the aperture, seeing the trap too late.

The doors slammed with a cracking boom. Ebony floated up over the symbols. “There’s…there’s a seal on this side! I don’t think I can open it.” He turned to look at us. “This is Hive sorcery like nothing I’ve seen before.”

Charlemagne also scanned the door. “I don’t think the doors are supposed to be able to be opened from this side. I…I think this is a cell.”

“Cell?” asked Drake. “Like a prison cell?”

“Exactly like a prison cell. Guardians, we’ve been locked in.”

“Can we get a message out?” I asked.

“Something about shutting the doors blocked our signal. I have only partial connection. Someone is going to have to get really close to pick us up.”

There was a moment of silence between us as the weight of the situation hit home. Then below us, through an exit – or maybe all of them – we heard a shriek. And a laugh. A familiar laugh that made the fluid in my joints freeze with //horror.

“Blood of the Traveler!” I swore softly.

“Morc? Morc, what’s wrong?” asked Drake.

I pointed my hand cannon at each of the exits in turn, peering into the Darkness. “It’s her!” I whispered.

“Who?” demanded Drake.

“The Wizard from the hunt. The hunt with the Erikssons.” It had been over a year, but I knew that sound. Another shrieking laugh echoed around us.

“Hunter!” The voice was below us. “Hunter! We have unfinished business, you and I!” She laughed again. “I have her, Hunter! I have your precious little human. Come down! Come down, or listen to her die!”

I had grown so used to transmats I rarely found them disorienting any longer, but this was not an ordinary day. The flash of light that pulled me through space felt as if it took longer than it should have; looking back on it, I wonder if it means a Guardian can experience the passage of time in a transmat or even in the nothing that occurs before a Ghost’s revival. In this case, it felt unusually long. And then suddenly I was falling again, though thankfully the spinning had stopped. “Ebony!” I shouted. My descent was straight down, parallel to what appeared to be a massive chain descending dozens or hundreds of meters.

“Look for somewhere to land!” Ebony squeaked. Below us, the chain had terminated into what appeared to be a platform. I extended my limbs outward to increase drag as the platform rushed up. Then I blinked.

The impact was still hard enough to register some damage – clearly my timing had been off – and I rolled with the inertia. My momentum brought me to the edge, stone scraping against my metal armor. I looked over the lip of the platform, down, down into darkness.

“That was too close,” said Ebony in a quavering voice.

“Agreed,” I said. I stood to my feet and nearly tipped over. I sat hard on my rear and crabbed away from the edge. “What’s wrong with the ground in this place?” I demanded and tried to stand again. My internal stabilizers compensated and I kept my footing this time.

“We’re not on ground,” said Ebony softly. I followed his gaze.

We stood in the longest hall I had ever seen. Above us, a ceiling arched almost out of sight in an A-frame shape. An eerie light shone at the far end of the hall. Hanging from the high vaulted ceiling were dozens – perhaps hundreds – of chains, connecting to stone pillars bigger than City towers. And the pillars themselves were not even grounded, but hung in the huge open space like overripe fruit on a dying tree.

Realization dawned. “We’re on one of those things? But…this platform is easily a dozen meters wide.” I turned in a circle to get the full grasp of its size.

“We’re just beneath the spine of the Dreadnought,” said Ebony. He looked upward, then back at me. “We are a long way from the transmat zone.”

“Do we have communications with the others?” I asked.

“We have clear communications – I am actually picking up a wide band. The Guardians have gotten Freki close to the LZ and they’re putting boots on the ground.”

“That’s something at least. Pipe it in.”

M, the tiny brash Vanguard Hunter, was giving orders in a crisp tone.“First wave in. Titans, form a wall.”

“Shields are up. Under fire from supporting Harvesters. Cabal presence is high, some Hive skirmisher units.”

“Move toward the inner wall. We may need to find an exit. Warlocks, make a hole. Hunters, spread out. We have scout reports from the initial landing but I want Ghost scans all over this ship. Move it! Escorts, status?”

Telrik responded. “Tomb ships destroyed or dispersing. The destroyers are taking up a perimeter near the lower hull. I think they’re protecting other possible LZ’s.”

“We’ll let the Red Jacks deal with them on the second wave. Bring your ships in and join the others. Titans, once the Hunters have dispersed, I want everyone to spread out. If we bunch up-“

“Blight! Blight events! Taken are storming our position!”

“My shield is down. Need covering fire.”

“Cutting event! A Tomb ship is cutting in.”

“Rockets! Kill that Taken Captain!”

“Loren-6 is down! Loren-6 is down and his Ghost isn’t responding!”

“Ogre! They brought an Ogre!”

M’s voice cut through the wild chatter, blanketing the comm bands. “Ignore the Ogre, it’s assaulting the Cabal. Form a perimeter around the LZ! Hunters, reel it in! Warlocks, call the Sun in here and uplift our Titans! Use your heavy weapons and push the Taken back!”

“We need to help them,” said Ebony.

I shook my head. “We’re too far from the LZ to be of any use. We need to find Emma.”

“Guardian, it’s likely Emma and Jorge are dead.”

I glared at him. “We need to find her. I won’t leave her here.”

“And how do we find her?” Ebony demanded. “If she were alive she would have likely communicated. If we search for anyone it needs to be survivors from the crash. Drake, Farstride, House, Nigel-12: all of them were alive before we transmatted into the Dreadnought.”

“They’re Guardians. Emma and Jorge are just humans.”

“We can’t help them if we’re dead, Guardian!” Ebony danced in the air like an angry black wasp. “We may have communications, but we are cut off from the Traveler’s Light here: if you fall I will have a lot of trouble reviving you on my own. With another Guardian at least I have a better chance of saving you. At least get help before we go haring off after her!”

I restrained the urge to smack the Ghost out of the air. After a moment I realized he was right. “Fine. Any idea where the nearest Guardian is?”

Ebony sighed with relief and fanned out, scanning. “I have a comm hit on Sir Drake. He’s not actually broadcasting, but he’s receiving. I think he’s close. Perhaps in this part of the super-structure.”

“Shotgun.” I extended my hand and Ebony transmatted the weapon. I chambered a round, and turned toward the nearest of the hanging columns, slightly below us and several meters away. “Let’s get to it.” Then I took a running start and leaped off the edge.

And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the city, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, recking nothing of war nor of wizardry, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn.
And as if in answer there came from far away another note. Horns, horns, horns, in dark Mindolluin’s sides they dimly echoed. Great horns of the north wildly blowing. Rohan had come at last.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

The interior of the jump ship was crowded with Guardians – if 8 could be called a crowd – and I was grateful I was in the cockpit. Emma Eriksson turned to me in her seat, proudly wearing a Dead Orbit uniform. “Buckle up, 45 seconds to jump out.”

“The first jump to Saturn made by a human in centuries? Perhaps ever? I might be a little excited.” Her eyes crinkled as she flashed her teeth in a grin.

“Technically a Guardian did it first,” I said.

She rolled her eyes. “Fine, Mr. Technical.” She put her helmet on and turned back to her console.

“15 seconds to jump out,” said Jorge Eriksson, the pilot. Emma flipped a switch on her comm console and the message broadcast through the cabin. Guardians shuffled in their seats, strapping in.

“5…4…3…2…mark!” There was a rushing sensation and then the slap of the bubble of “normal” space formed within the field and returned us to reality.

Emma opened a broadcast to let Jorge speak to the rest of the fleet. “This is Geri, jump complete! All ships, sound off!”

A staccato of status reports filtered through from the squadron of jump ships crowded around the support vessels. I was in 1 such ship with Drake, Farstride, House and a handful of volunteer Guardians from a Vanguard unit. The other support ship, Freki was flying a tight formation off our starboard. Our support vessels carried a grand total of 18 Guardians, and another 24 personal jump ships escorted us with the remainder of both Guardian units.

“Tower channel established, and broadcasting…” said Emma.

“Guardians, your efforts for the City this day shall not be forgotten,” said Commander Zavala’s voice over the comm. “You are, as Cayde-6 says, the first wave of ‘The Calvary’. The fates of the City and its allies lay in your hands. Establish our beachhead. Clear the way. Good luck.”

“Break formation!” The ship lurched wildly to port as it attempted to peel away from its partner. I was //glad I had strapped in as the opposite wall became the floor. I heard a retching sound from the cabin as a human Guardian was suddenly sick from the surprise maneuver.

Communications between the escorts rang out through the cabin. “Multiple destroyers and Tomb ships! They’re on a track for the LZ!”

“Jump ships, cut them off. Support ships: go for the landing zone, get boots on the ground before they reinforce that position!”

The ship lurched again, this time nose down toward the Dreadnought’s gravity well and I wished for a window to see what was going on outside the hull of the craft. As if on cue, I was granted my wish. Well, sort of.

There was a horrific tearing sound, and the cabin over my head was sliced open by the edge of a Tomb ship’s hull like a jagged knife. Emma shouted something unintelligible as the venting atmosphere tried to lift her out of her seat into the vacuum. Anything loose in the cabin shot out through the rapidly widening aperture.

Geri groaned as its hull warped and split. I turned in my seat to look back at the cabin: the other Guardians were all standing, their boots either magnetized or the Light keeping them planted to the deck as the ship ruptured around them.

“We’re almost in transmat range! 20 seconds to impact!” Jorge turned in his seat and shouted through the comm. “Abandon ship!” Then Geri shrieked like a wounded animal and the cockpit tore away from the main cabin.

I unfastened myself from the seat as we spun down – if there was a ‘down’ in space – and reached for Emma. She was still buckled in, and I drew my knife to slash her free. Then something hit the broken cockpit – whether debris or a stray shot I do not know – and suddenly I was thrown clear into space. “Emma!” I shouted at her and reached for the Light, pulling myself through time and space to blink forward and reach the cockpit again.

I missed. Whether I was too far away, or I simply miscalculated the trajectory, it was not enough. The cockpit hurtled out of my reach, down, down to the carapace of the Hive vessel beneath us. I realized I was spinning, like a bullet out of a gun. I saw figures and pieces of ship falling around me, well out of reach. Beyond the debris I could see Guardian ships zipping through space, firing at Hive vessels. Saturn, huge and ominous, its rings shining with pale light. And then the chitinous hull of the Dreadnought rushing at me, closer, closer, closer-

“Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.”
― Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man

“Are you sure this is worth it?” I asked.

“Are you kidding?” asked Farstride. “We’ve got her cornered.”

“The Cabal have her cornered,” I corrected. “And in spite of their losses, they don’t seem to have suffered as badly as we would have thought.”

“Look again.” The lightly-armored Titan handed me his small scope and pointed to the Cabal forces in the rocky valley below us. I lifted the scope to my eye. A cluster of skeletal buildings, marking the edge of the Buried City where it met Meridian Bay, had been taken over by a cohort of Cabal Legionaries and Psions. The central building, the tallest, was surrounded by the Cabal, and at its summit was a Fallen Wolf Skiff, tied to the tower like an old Earth blimp. I could see Vandals patrolling its floors, and the Cabal refused to approach the base of it in force. I focused on the Cabal forces, a standard mix of Legionaries and Psions, but I saw only 1 command officer: a Colossus in Dust Giant colors.

“I’m not seeing it,” I admitted after a minute.

“Look at the Psions,” urged Farstride patiently. I obeyed, and trained the scope on the smaller Cabal creatures. They darted to and fro between the bigger units, clearly prepping for their assault. Then the realization clicked.

“Those aren’t Sand Eaters,” I said. “And they are not Dust Giants. Blind Legion?” I ventured.

“No,” said Farstride. “No, that’s a different unit: Skyburners. The fleet that evacuated Phobos.”

“They’re bolstering other units,” I concluded. “But if they have that kind of troop potential…”

“The Vanguard have long suspected the Cabal have been pulling their punches,” said Farstride. “Looks like they were right.”

“How does this support your case for stealing the Baronness from under their noses?” I asked.

“It doesn’t make the slightest difference,” admitted Farstride cheerily. “But I think we have a good shot. They don’t know we’re here, they will likely not want to engage in anything too protracted, and I hate leaving the job unfinished. We’re taking down that bounty.”

I emulated a sigh to indicate my //reluctance and handed the scope back. “OK, Boss: what’s the plan?”

“This is a terrible plan!” insisted Ebony.

“Quiet!” hissed Ivory – or “Freyja”, as the little white Ghost insisted she be called, a fact I had missed until I had called her a “him” – at Ebony. “You’ll give us away!”

I stayed still next to the doorway of the tallest building as a Psion skittered past me. It paused and looked around, and I felt an odd pressure as its gaze swung my way. I waited, hoping my cloaking tech was efficient enough to fool it. Then it chittered and continued on its way. I ducked into the building, lugging the crate in my hands to a nearby support beam.

“That’s not load-bearing,” said Freyja.

“Well, point out a support that is!” I snapped.

“Rude!” she declared, and floated away to a large flat wall that extended several meters into the structure. She scanned it. “This will do,” she said. I lugged the crate to the base of the support and set it down. A Wolf Shank floated past and I snatched it out of the air and slammed it against the support beam before it could alert the rest. It shattered into pieces, and I returned my focus to the crate.

“You’ll want to pour your Light into the case itself. Not the explosives, or you might set them off, or cancel Farstride’s Void energy,” said Freyja.

“Bad plan, bad plan,” worried Ebony, dancing on the edge of my sight.

“Both of you shut up,” I ordered. I extended my hand and concentrated a moment. I was no Warlock, but any Guardian knew how to channel their Light. But the unstable nature of Arc energy did make me //nervous, and I was less than confident that I would not blow us all to bits.

“Not if you slug everything at it,” she replied. “But if you concentrate on the case itself, there won’t be enough interference until something trips it. Trust the Light.”

I nodded and began charging the case. Sparks of Arc energy crackled softly around my hand, and I felt the Light pour through me like the current of a storm. The rush filled my circuits, and for a moment I could see outside myself, as if disembodied…

“Guardian, stop!” Ebony’s voice cut through my //euphoria and I struggled to reduce the flow. The case glowed with energy.

“Now tie it to the structure,” said Freyja. “Think of it like twisting a pair of wires.” I did as she instructed, wrapping my fingers in a twisting motion, tying the Light energy to the building’s superstructure.

“Farstride, we’re done,” reported Freyja.

“Good! I’m beginning my run about…now!” There was an explosion of a rocket outside the building, and the calls of the Cabal rousing their comrades to battle.

“When the time comes, you’ll just undo the tie,” said Freyja.

I hefted my shotgun. “If you say so,” I replied doubtfully. I rushed for the door, camouflage forgotten. A Legionary filled the entrance. I shot it in the knee and it fell, roaring. I put another round of heavy shot into its helmet, shattering it and the Cabal collapsed in a shower of gasses. I leaped over the body and into the battlefield.

Farstride stood in the courtyard of the building, surrounded by Cabal heavy units. He had a sidearm, newly acquired at the Reef, in his hand. A staccato of gunfire from the little weapon cracked the breastplate of a Legionary. He leaped forward and planted his fist into the broken armor and the Cabal disappeared in an atomized cloud of Void energy. He charged through the cloud, and it wrapped around him a like a coat. Then he pivoted on his heel and smashed his fist into the knee of a another Legionary, felling it like a tree, then dropped both fists into the top of its helmet: it crumpled like a tin can under the force of the blow. The Titan drew his hand cannon in one hand, his sidearm in the other, and spun. Gunfire erupted from his weapons, cutting through Cabal armor like razors while their weapons fire skipped off the Void shield surrounding his body. The Cabal around him collapsed into heaps, and with a flourish he holstered his weapons.

“Must he be such a cowboy?” sighed Freyja, and winged her way toward her Guardian.

“Time to get clear before the Fallen clue in,” said Farstride. He summoned his Sparrow and I copied him, and we raced for the dunes once more. Gunfire skipped off the rocks around us, and I looked over my shoulder to see the Colossus shooting at us as we fled.

At the top of the dune we turned our Sparrows around and looked back at the Cabal camp, astir like a disturbed ant nest.

“Time to blow it Morc,” said Farstride.

“That’s what she said,” I quipped. I reached out at the tower where I had planted the explosives and sought the sensation of Light at its base. I found the tether between my Light and the building and tried to tug them apart.

The lowest 4 stories of the building vaporized into Void energy, and the rest of the building dropped straight down into the sand with a boom that rattled our Sparrows, and then every floor of the structure collapsed downward like a vertical set of dominoes, dragging the floating Skiff with it into a cloud of smoke and dust. The Cabal tried to scatter and were swallowed up by the cloud, and then the surrounding buildings shuddered and collapsed. The cloud billowed upward into the sky, and the weak light of Sol was momentarily obscured.

“I’d say that was a confirmed kill,” said Farstride.

“No bounty without proof,” I said.

“I’m sure Petra won’t argue,” said Farstride. He clapped me on the shoulder. “I’d say this was a job well done.”